Feeling Motherly

It happens every year.  You go to gather eggs in the afternoon and there is a hen sitting on eggs.  You reach underneath her to grab the eggs and she pecks your hand, "bushes" up her feathers to make herself look twice the size she is, and she makes some weird, threatening noises.  What's going on with her?  

She's broody.  That means she's decided she wants to sit on a clutch of eggs and hatch them out.  Her biological clock is ticking and she wants to be a mother.

Right now we have four of them (out of 31) that are broody.  If you take the eggs out from underneath them, they'll still sit there.  They will sit atop a ceramic egg or an unfertilized egg.  Poor girl.  She wants to be a momma so bad, she'll do anything.  Here's another broody hen:

And here's yet another.  She is in full "fluff" mode, here.  She's very protective of the eggs she's sitting on.

Tricia and I decided to let one of them set.  We gathered 10 eggs and put them underneath her in this little cage.  This way, we can lock it up at night so that she isn't eaten by the minks.  As cunning as they are, they haven't figured a way to make it through hardware cloth.

Today when I went to feed all the chickens, this broody hen got off her nest to eat.  There were only 5 eggs remaining.  I don't know what happened to the other 5.  We suspect she ate them.  Hopefully, she'll stick it out for another 3 weeks and hatch out 5 biddies.  We'll wait and see if her motherly wishes come to fruition.

The Determined Broody Hen

 

My hat's off to this old girl.  She is the picture of determination and perseverance.  She's a hen that wants the eggs beneath her to hatch.  When a hen is mature and the days are long, a hen's pituitary gland will release a hormone called prolactin.  She will then sit on eggs.  The motherly instinct is at full throttle.  When you try to remove the eggs from beneath her, she will fluff up her feathers, making herself look larger than she actually is and make a frightening noise.  She'll even peck at your hand with her beak.

To tell you how bad she wants the eggs beneath her to hatch?  Well, I am not exaggerating when I tell you it must be 110 degrees in the henhouse and there she sits all day long.  Chicken eggs hatch in 21 days.  Her hen instincts are guiding her.  She is looking forward to the day when the eggs beneath her hatch and babies arrive.

Why do I keep saying "eggs beneath her?"  They are not her eggs.  They aren't even chicken eggs.  They are guinea fowl eggs.  My neighbor gave me a number of fertilized Lavender Guinea eggs to put under the broody hen.  She accepted them and has been sitting on them for what I figure is 3 weeks.  Unfortunately, I didn't write down the date when I put them underneath her.  

Who knows?  The eggs underneath her may be poached eggs in all this heat.  I'll give her another week setting on them.  If they hatch, however, it'll be neat to see this hen being a surrogate mother to her adopted guinea fowl chicks.  We will check in on her again in the days to come.

What to do with a Broody Hen?

We have a hen in the hen house that is broody.  That means she is in a "motherly way."  She wants to set and hatch out some baby chicks.  Every afternoon when I gather eggs, there she is sitting in the nest.  It's so hot!  I feel sorry for her.  Each day I've been picking her up and collecting eggs and closing up the nesting boxes.  If you don't close them, at night they roost in the boxes and poop in them.  That makes egg collection a mess.  Then you have to clean the eggs which removes the 'bloom' and reduces their shelf life.

When you try to pick her up, she makes agitated noises and fluffs up her feathers.  Lots of animals do this to scare you off and intimidate you.  What to do with a broody hen?  We don't need any more chickens.  I have a number of hens and roosters in the chicken tractor that I'm about to merge in with the flock in the pasture.

Well, my neighbor had an answer for the broody hen.  He has a number of fertilized guinea fowl eggs.  They are lavender guineas.  The eggs should be fertilized.  We'll see if ol' broody girl is going to set on them, hatch them, and raise them as her own.  The day before yesterday, I put all the guinea eggs underneath her while she was setting.  She let me!  Today she got up, but got right back on them once she ate.  Here's all of the guinea eggs:

They are about 3/4 the size of a chicken egg.  I should have counted them, but I didn't.

Guinea eggs have a harder shell than a chicken egg.  When I was growing up, we'd use boiled guinea eggs for pocking.  Pocking eggs is a Cajun French tradition.  On Easter Sunday you "pock" your eggs together to see who has the hardest egg.  My great grandma would always bring them.  I always wondered what "pocking" meant.  Pâques is the French word for Easter.  Maybe that's why?  Pocking is the sound made when hitting two eggs together.  Maybe that's why?  

We will see in a little less than 3 weeks if our broody hen is successful in hatching out some lavender guineas.

Our Experiment with the Broody Hen

I posted about the Broody Hen a while back.  She is a determined old bird.  She wants to set.  She desires to raise a family of chicks.  Day after day, we lift her up and snatch the eggs from beneath her.  Warm eggs. Eggs holding promise of a new life within.  Instead, we turn them into scrambled eggs, fried eggs, or fried rice or the makings of a chocolate cake.  The broody hen makes noises letting us know she is very displeased with our theft of her progeny.  She fluffs up her feathers as a signal of angst and ire.

At some point we relent.  I have an idea.  I say to Tricia, "We've lost a lot of hens this year to old age, predators, and injury."  Many birds get crushed underfoot by cows who have no sense of compassion or brotherhood for their barnyard companions.  "Let's allow the broody hen to set and raise a clutch of chicks."

Tricia agrees and a plan is hatched.  (Pardon the pun.)  I put hay, a water container and feed into an old dog kennel we have.  We plan to put the broody hen in this cage, so she'll be isolated away from the other chickens to raise her brood.

I moved a number of eggs into the homemade nest and I went and got the hen, set her in her new 'nursery' and... problems ensued.  First, the broody hen was very nervous, clucking and pacing, uncomfortable with her new abode.  Then, Belle, our new puppy, came and paced in front of the cage, making the hen anxious and jittery.  She clucked and paced back and forth.  We decided to leave her for about six hours to get acclimated to her new surroundings.

The hen never warmed up to her new residence.  She never tried to set on the eggs.  What to do?  Well, we decided to put her back into her nesting box.  We put a dozen eggs underneath her and she was all over them like white on rice.  She fluffed out her feathers and gently pulled her wings over the eggs and sat.  Happy, once again.

The broody hen, determined as ever, gets the opportunity to raise a family.  We'll check in on her from time to time.  We marked our calendars that come April 26th, we should have baby chicks hatching out.

New Life on the Farm

Yesterday we talked about losing a baby goat.  It was odd, because Domino seemed to be the strongest of Annie's triplets.  When he got sick, though, it knocked him down quickly.  We're on the final day of treatment for the other affected buckling, and he seems to be progressing nicely toward a full recovery.  It's always sad to lose an animal you weren't expecting on losing.  That's just the way it goes, however.  Animals are remarkably resilient and time marches on.

As if to get our minds off of the loss of Domino, we looked over during evening chores to see a momma hen come strutting up with her feathers all fluffed out with four baby chicks following closely behind her!  We went from being sad about the loss to being happy about new life in an instant.

We have hens that get broody all the time, but we don't let them set.  This hen got wise and decided she'd go find a hiding place, lay some eggs there, hatch them, and raise her babies without us having a say in the matter.  I looked and looked and finally found her hiding place.  In the bull pasture (that we call the bull pen), there is an old dog kennel under a chicken tractor.  I opened up the end of the tractor so that Buckwheat, the billy goat, can get inside when it is raining.  The momma hen figured she could get inside too!  I found the eggshells left over from the hatched out chicks.  I also found two un-hatched eggs.  Perhaps they weren't fertilized?  We try to have 1 rooster for every 10 hens to ensure fertilization, but sometimes that ratio doesn't work out.

We also found one baby chick that hatched out, but for whatever reason, didn't survive.  This happens from time to time.

At first the momma hen keep her little family far away from us and the rest of the chickens.  Slowly, she began to bring them closer, especially when I threw some hen scratch and laying pellets her way.

She began to teach her little ones how to scratch hay out of the way to expose the feed.  She was a good teacher.  The chicks imitated her actions and soon were scratching, pecking, and eating - just like momma!

I put out a pan of clean water for the chicks and we'll keep a close eye on them.  It'll be fun to watch them grow up!

The Old Broody Hen

We have right at 100 hens that roam Our Maker's Acres Farm.  They scratch for bugs and worms, and they scratch through the cow patties in the pasture, distributing fertilizer across the pasture better than a fertilizer spreader.  As they roam, they too, drop fertilizer, contributing to a wonderful cycle that keeps the grass growing for the cows and goats.

I like our chickens.  I like to watch them chase down roaches when I'm splitting wood.  They are so focused on their meal that I often have to stop my ax in mid-swing so as not to decapitate a hen intent on her mid-day roach snack.  They are not very watchful.  Ever so often we have hens that get caught underfoot of one of our Jersey cows.  Due to this run-in, they will limp for many days and weeks after learning an expensive lesson on not tangling up with something bigger than you. Others die due to these injuries.  I can't tell you how many chickens I have buried in the garden.

Our hens also lay beautiful eggs for us each morning.  They'll rush to one of many nesting boxes an plop down in the hay and lay an egg.  Then, in a remarkable show of pride, they'll sing a little song letting all the other hens know that they've laid an egg.  One of these days I'll tape the "Happy Egg Song" for you and play it for you so that you can see what I mean.  Most of the time after they sing this song, they'll jump up out of the nesting box and head out to the pasture and clock-in for a full day's work of doing what I explained in the first paragraph.

But there are certain times when they don't get up.  They become 'broody,' meaning that they go through some hormonal changes that make them want to set on her eggs and hatch out some babies. Broody hens are easy to spot because they become very territorial.  If you come near to her nesting box, she'll fluff out her feathers so that she looks twice as large.  Then she'll make a very angry sound that is meant to frighten you away.

Although there are times when we let a broody hen set, right now we have enough hens.  I don't want her to hatch out any chicks.  So each day we ignore the broody hen's bad temper and reach underneath her and remove the eggs she is sitting on. One must be brave to do this, because you will get your hand pecked by a truly angry bird!

She means business!  In the end though, the smallest creature loses the battle of the will and I exit the hen house with a basket full of eggs.

One of these days, I'll want some more additional baby chicks and I hope at that time this old broody hen or another one like her will oblige to setting on some fertilized eggs.  These protective mommas do their duty well.  I have a friend from church who has some broody hens right now and he asked me to bring him some fertilized eggs.  I brought him two dozen so far and his broody hens have hatched out a bunch of baby chicks for him.  There is absolutely no need for an incubator if you have a broody hen.

The Broody Hen

A broody hen is a hen that wants to hatch out her eggs.  In most cases, hens lay their eggs and then sing a proud little song (You'd probably sing a song too if you successfully laid an egg!)  and they are back out to the pasture, scratching, eating, and cavorting around with their chicken friends.  They aren't interested in sitting on the eggs that they lay most days.  But every once in a while, a hen will become broody. I would assume that the motherly instinct kicks in and they suddenly want to bring some new little ones into the world, much as humans do.

Broody hens seem like they are in a 'fowl' mood, pardon the pun.  When you try to pick up the eggs beneath a broody hen, she'll fluff up her feathers, make angry noises and will peck you with her beak. We have a broody hen in one of the nesting boxes in the barn right now.  She is a Black Star hen that was given to me by a good friend.  A Black Star chicken is a brown egg layer that is a cross between a Rhode Island Red rooster and a Barred Rock hen.  This breed must be exceptionally good mothers as we've not had much success with broody hens hatching out babies, but the hen that just hatched out some chicks was a Black Star and now a few weeks later, this girl is trying to do likewise.

We had a little family meeting and decided to allow her to try to hatch out some chicks. Benjamin went out to gather eggs and marked all the eggs underneath her with a pencil and also moved the two eggs under her that were in the neighboring nesting box that you see below.  We'll let her set for 21 days and pick up any new eggs each day we find under her that are not marked.  (Note: The darker colored egg below is a wooden egg that entices hens to lay and also is there to ward against snakes as described in the snake blog post.  Obviously we didn't put that under her.)

Sally Hennypenny is Broody!

I think in total there are either 4 or 6 eggs in her clutch underneath her right now. In addition to the chicks that the previous hen hatched out and the 23 chicks that we successfully hatched out of our incubator, we're allowing her to set on her eggs to hopefully replenish/re-freshen our current hens. They are getting old and some have been laying for years.  Some are looking rough, skinny, with faded feathers and I think we may have some that won't make it through the summer.  They are played out!

You can usually count on 50% of the chicks being roosters and 50% being hens. We'll eat the roosters and let the hens lay eggs for us.  They'll begin laying at about 24 weeks of age.  So far, we can estimate to have 13 hens from those that hatched. (I'm not counting my chickens before they hatch.) Those 13 hens will lay upwards of 170 eggs per year, so we're adding approximately 2,210 eggs per year or 184 dozen per year to our current egg production capacity.

Bringing new hens on the pasture keeps our egg production up and ensures that we have young whippersnappers ready to assume the egg laying role once the older girls "retire."  In the meantime, we'll take care of the broody hen.  Broody hens sit all day long, for weeks on end, and only briefly get up to go eat a little food and drink water.  They are primarily focused on providing necessary warmth to the eggs to develop the embryo so that baby chicks pop out in 21 days.

Broody Hen on day 2

She is not happy with the attention I'm giving her, so I'll back away and give her some space. Hopefully she'll have success and we'll have a new generation of chicks to populate the green pastures on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.